If Backchannels With Russia Are Considered Nefarious, Say Hello To War If Mueller really is investigating backchannels between the incoming Trump administration and the Kremlin, we have reached peak idiocy.The Federalist, Mar 13, 2018, Willis L. Krumholz

Not every anonymously sourced media freakout over a nothingburger story surrounding Trump and Russia warrants a response, but this time is different. Last week media outlets hyped an anonymously-sourced report that Robert Mueller, the special counsel appointed to investigate Russian election interference, was investigating Erik Prince, founder of the private security company Blackwater.

“Mueller gathers evidence that 2017 Seychelles meeting was effort to establish back channel to Kremlin,” read The Washington Post’s headline.

The story goes that in January 2017, just before Trump’s inauguration, Prince met with officials from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at a luxury resort on the Seychelles islands. These UAE officials facilitated a “backchannel” meeting between Prince and a Russian head of a sovereign-wealth-fund, Kirill Dmitriev.

Late last year, Prince told Congress and the media that he was at the resort to meet the UAE officials for a business deal, and happened upon Mr. Dmitriev by chance. According to Prince, they had a beer together, and that was it.

If we are to believe these anonymous sources supposedly connected to Mueller, Prince’s story is now in question because of a witness to the meeting who is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.

From The Washington Post: “A witness cooperating with Mueller has told investigators the meeting was set up in advance so that a representative of the Trump transition could meet with an emissary from Moscow to discuss future relations between the countries, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.”